


Engulfed

by Luaburachid



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/M, Maybe a tiny bit of angst, Pining Zuko (Avatar), canon compliant(ish), feelings and thoughts, he told me himself, this happened we just didn't see it, zuko is completely in love with katara
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2020-09-28
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:29:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26688208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luaburachid/pseuds/Luaburachid
Summary: Zuko finds himself engulfed by love.
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 32
Kudos: 145





	Engulfed

**Author's Note:**

> I was sleep-deprived, thinking about zutara, reading poetry at 4 a.m.  
> This is the first work I ever post so I'm nervous, please forgive me if it's terrible

* * *

> _Love ate my name, my identity, my portrait. Love ate my birth certificate, my genealogy, my address. Love came and ate all the papers where I had written my name._
> 
> -Translation of an excerpt from the poem “Os Três Mal Amados” by João Cabral de Melo Neto 

* * *

Over the course of his life, Love had taken the form of a few shapes. The curve of a mother's smile, the arms of an uncle who cared for him like a father should. He had once even dared to dream that love could be a straight face topped with silky black hair tied in two buns. But now, love was different, and it was everywhere and everything. Love was sitting around a campfire listening to friends telling stories, it was complimenting the Avatar whenever he mastered a new firebending form, it was the distant giggling that bothered him while he meditated. Love was chopping vegetables, washing smelly clothes, making dinner. 

There was also another kind of love, one that gave him a sense of peace during a century of war. One that at the same time made his stomach flip and brought heat to his cheeks. 

Love was a girl in blue. Her eyes, her hands, her reassuring words, her temper, her laugh, her determination. Love was each ounce of Katara.

It did not take him much long to realize it. 

They were in the room that had once been a library. 

''I can't believe I burned almost everything", he sighed and let his weight fall into the dusty couch. His mind went back to when the particles descending in the air were the ashes to which he had reduced his family memories. 

"I know how important objects can be", she said as she sat beside him. Zuko watched her hands trail up to her nape and before he could understand what she was doing she reached for his hand and placed her necklace on his palm. "What does it tell you about my mother?"

He traced the pattern on the stone. The familiar weight that had hung on his wrist less than a year ago felt like a glimpse of another lifetime, and he felt wretched for having taken it away from her back then.

"I'm sorry", he whispered, "I don't know what it’s supposed to tell me".

"Exactly, Zuko", she began, enveloping his hand in hers. "Because the object itself doesn't hold anything. It feels safe, it's a solid reminder. But it is not inside of objects that our memories are", she offered him a gentle smile as she unfolded his fingers one by one and reclaimed the necklace.

She was right. He didn't need any object to remember his mother or a time when life felt easier. All the memories he tried to burn the last time he had been in this beach house were already engraved on his bones and now he was grateful for it. Love didn't feel like a burden anymore. 

Katara's words echoed in his mind. He should have known it by this point. _Nothing that's tangible actually holds anything_. He'd spent three years trying to go back to the palace, only to get there and learn that the halls were emptier than he had remembered and the adornments of gold and red were not even nearly as colorful as the plain old wood of the decrepit house where he had lived with his uncle in the lower ring of Ba Sing Se. He had not missed the palace. _It did not hold anything_. He had not missed the cold marble pillars nor the warm silk sheets. Not even his title. 

He had missed _home_. Which no longer existed. He wouldn't dare calling that place a home when instead of a family all he could hear in there was the wind cursing him as it hissed through the corridors that tangled and mingled with one another like veins. Blood and poison running freely through them.

He had missed the steady pace that days take when you are around loved ones, the sleep that comes easily when there's room for more than yourself in your heart. He had missed not being ashamed of who he was. _That's how Katara makes you feel_ , a voice inside of him that he refused to acknowledge as his own told him. _She feels like belonging_. 

That's why doing dull chores with her flooded him with peace, why her hands seemed to fit perfectly in his, why the bickering didn't annoy him, why her laugh was the sweetest sound. That's why there was a hint of her in his every thought, why the tides hummed her name, why the moon kissed her skin, why the sun burned brighter when she was around. 

That's why he didn't hesitate when a strike of blinding blue lightning slit the air towards her. If his life were to end in blue, he wouldn’t mind. It was her color.

* * *

> _Love ate my peace and my war. My day and my night. My winter and my summer. Ate my silence, my headache, my fear of death._
> 
> -Translation of an excerpt from the poem “Os Três Mal Amados” by João Cabral de Melo Neto 

* * *


End file.
